Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Where are we going?” Horatio asked, trotting to catch up to Hamlet. His strides were so much longer, more purposeful. He walked like he owned the city. Which, frankly, he practically did. “I thought we were going to church?”

Horatio’s breath puffed in front of him and he buried his hands deep in his pockets against the cold. Hamlet hardly even seemed to notice it, wearing nothing but a slightly nicer suit than usual. It had been a funeral, after all. He hardly seemed to notice much, these days.

“We are,” Hamlet said. He smelled like cigarettes and cognac, and his voice was clipped. Horatio desperately wanted to know what had happened during those weeks before he’d hopped on the train to join his friend.

“We just passed it,” Horatio said, gesturing with his chin to the church they’d left behind them. Hamlet hadn’t even stopped for a second.

“Not that church.”

Horatio fell into step behind his friend. They walked in silence, feet crunching through the dusting of snow on the sidewalks. He wished he’d grabbed an extra coat, Hamlet looked cold. He looked so frail, tall and willowy and trembling. Horatio wished the duty to care for him didn’t fall onto his shoulders. Every time, though, it was him doing the work.

It was frankly ridiculous that his strange, eccentric, cagey flatmate was involved in crime. It was frankly ridiculous, the whole situation. He’d never felt more like a poorly written caricature, a simple queer uni student who fell miserably in love with his broody flatmate only to find out he was mafia. It would be funny, if it wasn’t so awful.

There were other people out, but it was like being with Hamlet put him in the eye of the storm. They were surrounded by a tenuous, uneasy calm as they walked down the pavement. It felt like the world, chaotic and swirling, had frozen for just enough time for Hamlet to live his life. He was a snapshot of a tumultuous period, a fragment of a world in movement. Hamlet looked over his shoulder and his stony expression encompassed a whole universe.

Silently, Horatio followed Hamlet through the snowy streets. His breath plumed in front of him, thin and misty. Hamlet’s breath came out in clouds of smoke, a cigarette ever-present in his hand. Horatio hadn’t seen him without one since his father passed. It made no sense that he would follow so blindly, so trustingly, when he was in a foreign city with an unpredictable man, but there was nothing else he could do. Time had paused around them, understanding the importance of this journey, wherever it turned out to lead. While they walked it was just him and this man who held the ever-changing human experience in his eyes.

“I thought you were Protestant,” Horatio said when they stopped in front of a fairly large Catholic church. They must have been walking for over half an hour. Horatio had lost track of time, following the line of Hamlet’s smoke as it cut through the skyscape. Like following a line on a map, it had led him to Hamlet, and Hamlet had led him here.

“So did I,” Hamlet replied, stepping aside from the door to finish his cigarette.

There were only two lonely cigarettes left in the pack, rolling about without the support of the others. Horatio worried about when Hamlet had smoked all those. He worried about how much he was smoking, how much he was drinking, how much he was frowning, and how much he was insisting he was alright. He worried about Hamlet a lot. No one else seemed to do it.

“Then why are we here?” Horatio asked. He watched the ashes fall into the snow, staining the pure white gray in small spots. He looked back up at Hamlet, a man more ash than blood, and wondered what that made him. Hamlet’s friend, his steadfast companion, his caretaker, who never smoked nor drank nor wallowed in his own misery. Was he the snow on the ground, untainted by boots or ash or tires, lacking marks of life. Beside Hamlet, Horatio felt like a cardboard cut-out of a person. Beside the swirling madness of colour and life and change that was Hamlet, Horatio felt as blank and shiny as the fresh snow piled up beside the church. He wanted to be tainted, he wanted something to show for his life. He wanted to be a microcosm of humanity as a whole, he wanted to feel like he contained something.

Leaning one shoulder against the church, Horatio tried to shake his thoughts off. He was feeling inferior compared to his friend, the mobster with more problems than could be counted in every speck of ash in his lungs. It was ridiculous. Horatio still craved it, though, that life that Hamlet seemed to capture in every tilt of his head, every twitch of his fingers.

“My father,” Hamlet said, when he’d finally finished his cigarette. He looked at it for a moment before letting it fall carelessly into the snow. “Was Catholic. He took me here a few times, but mother dearest was never happy about it. She thought Catholicism was too antiquated. I suppose she thought of Calvin as a particularly modern fellow. Still, I always liked church with my father. It was the one time I felt like he wasn’t expecting anything of me. I didn’t have to take on the family business when we were in church, because we don’t deal in a trade suited for the eyes of God.”

“I was raised Catholic, you know,” Horatio said. Neither had made a move for the doors. They seemed to loom dauntingly. “Church every Sunday, always an ear out for what the Pope might be up to, in sunny Italy. It seemed so exotic and wonderful to a little German boy.”

“Why did you stop believing?”

“I suppose it got too hard, when my brother died, to believe a benevolent force from the heavens would have done that to me. My mum didn’t much care if we said our prayers after that, anyways. I let it fall by the wayside.”

“I hope the afterlife isn’t real,” Hamlet confessed softly. “I don’t like to think about where my father is sure to have gone.”

Horatio smiled weakly at his friend and, fueled by the admission, pushed open the door. They stepped into the church together.

It was empty, of course. It had never occurred to Horatio that it would be anything but, not when he was wrapped up in Hamlet’s own time stream. Anyone else would’ve ruined it, so of course they weren’t there.

The bright snowy light shone through large stained glass windows that decorated the walls, and seemed to melt and pool in Hamlet’s shadow. There was a wake of beauty and faith behind him as he walked slowly, more akin to a death row inmate than a pilgrim.

Horatio watched wordlessly as Hamlet sat and pressed his hands together, bowing his head. Hair fell in front of his face, hanging loose over his shoulders, blonde strands catching the light of the stained glass pieces. Horatio looked around, cataloguing all the stories he recognised. They all stared down at the masses that were supposed to have gathered in their halls, finding instead just Hamlet and Horatio. Their gazes were nothing but cold glass to Horatio, beautiful artworks someone of great faith had made years back; nothing more. They were watching Hamlet. Of course they were. They were all watching – the colourful biblical figures and Horatio himself – as Hamlet tried to pray. He was shaking. His knuckles were white. There were tears in the corners of his eyes. Horatio turned away, choosing instead to examine one of the closest windows, which seemed to have enveloped Hamlet in its projected image. Samson. Horatio greeted him with a curt nod.

Eventually, time let out a breath, and the church doors creaked open. Someone else had entered, which seemed to snap Hamlet out of his fervent attempt at prayer. He took a moment to relax, letting the tension flow out of his clenched hands, then raised his head and met Horatio’s eye.

“Done?”

Hamlet nodded. They left the church. It was still snowing outside, Hamlet’s cigarette butt had been swallowed up by a new layer of pristine snow. Horatio wanted to tarnish it again. His heart called out to that poor, unmarred snow more than it had ever called out to the Lamb of God. He wanted to destroy its unsullied surface. He wanted to feel like he’s been marked by the world passing by, wanted to feel like he carried a piece of humanity in him.

“Did you pray?” Hamlet asked. He sounded hesitant.

“No,” said Horatio. “I don’t think there’s anyone to pray to, and I’m not partial to speaking into the air.”

“No,” agreed Hamlet. “Only madmen do that, I suppose.”

His hands shook as he fished out the pack of cigarettes. There were two left, and they looked so lonely. He imagined himself and his friend must not have looked so different, all alone in an empty church, not even the Holy Spirit there to keep them company. Just the two of them, leaning against each other without anything else to hold them up, deserted as anything.

“I don’t think you’re mad,” Horatio said, watching as Hamlet fumbled to get one of the cigarettes into his hand. His heart ached for the second one, left all alone. What was it to do without its friend to keep it supported?

“You’re one of few.”

“Let me light that for you.”

Horatio wanted to feel tainted. Desecrated. He flicked the lighter and cupped his hand around Hamlet’s cigarette, listening to the pleasant sound of the paper catching fire.

“Have you ever smoked?” Hamlet asked. Neither of them had moved to separate from each other. They were so close. Hamlet’s words filled the air between them with smoke, which Horatio greedily inhaled.

“No,” he said. “I considered it, but… no.”

Hamlet fell silent, softly blowing his smoke down Horatio’s trachea. He didn’t look guilty about it. Horatio was revelling in it.

“Do you think they’re different people, all the Gods we all worship?” Hamlet eventually asked. “If I went back to my mum’s church— my church, would I be praying to a different person? Would he be there for me?”

“How many times have you been here, since your father died?”

“Eight.”

“Have you ever felt anything?”

“No.” Hamlet sighed. Horatio breathed in deeply. “But I don’t feel anything in my church, either. I don’t feel anything at home when I try to pray. It’s like I’ve been abandoned. I’m not ready to let go. Why do I have to lose my father and my faith at the same time?”

“You don’t,” Horatio said. “You can choose to hold on, and you’ll come out on the other side of this with your faith. Grief shouldn’t take away the things you care about. You don’t have to let it.”

“I think I already have.”

They stood together, just breathing. Hamlet’s cigarette smouldered between his fingers, hanging somewhere at his side. Horatio saw cultural upheaval in Hamlet’s eyes, saw societal movement in the slant of his lips. He wanted that. He wanted to feel like a whole entity, sharp angles and rebellion, filled to the brim with mirror shards of the world itself. He still felt like that little boy, realising there couldn’t be a God if his brother had died for no reason. He still felt like that little boy, seeing his sister smoke and fight and laugh and feeling nothing but fear. He still felt like that little boy, watching the snow meander across the sky and wondering if it preferred to be unblemished or covered in marks of life.

“Care for a smoke?” Hamlet asked casually, so casually, like this was an everyday thing between them. Like Horatio’s experience with tobacco wasn’t just the smell that lingered in the clothes his sister lent him and the thin line that he used as a compass to orient himself towards the man who had somehow taken over his whole life. Horatio was a book, all the later pages steeped in smoke so strong it seemed to meld with the words, and he was about to take it in his hands and set it on fire.

Really, it wasn’t a big deal. Horatio was accepting a cigarette from his friend, he was trying something new, he was experimenting. There were thousands of people across the world probably doing the exact same thing as him at that very moment. But it felt like the world. Hamlet passed him the cigarette he himself had been smoking, and Horatio’s lips settled comfortably where those of the man he loved had been. He felt smoke fill his throat as he breathed in deeply.

He coughed, and Hamlet laughed. It was nice to see him smile. He hadn’t smiled properly since he greeted Horatio on the train platform when he arrived. Suddenly, they were in movement. Horatio hadn’t felt them start walking, it had simply been a natural progression of Hamlet’s laughter. They were walking, and Horatio was stepping on the pure snow that clung to the edges of buildings. Giving it a taste of life.

Hamlet opened the pack and took out the final cigarette. He placed it between his teeth and lit it, hands still shaking lightly. They were together again, those lonely two. Burning together, smoke intertwining up in the sky. Horatio wondered where it was going, if the smoke would split apart again, or if it had become one indistinguishable entity.

There was colour in the world, when Hamlet smiled. He seemed to brighten up the universe with his crinkled eyes and single dimple. Let there be light.

“Are we going back to your home?” Horatio asked, coughing a little. There was smoke on his breath. He felt unmoored. He felt one step closer to understanding Hamlet. There was smoke in his words and no God in his heavens, and he felt bold enough to take Hamlet’s hand.

“No,” Hamlet said, curling his fingers around Horatio’s. “Let’s go for a walk, shall we?”

“Whatever you say.”

Hamlet walked like he owned the city, with Horatio’s steps in sync with his own. Together, they meandered through the streets until the cigarettes were burnt out, and then some. When Hamlet bought another pack, he offered Horatio the first smoke. He accepted. The smoke they exhaled was one singular entity, and it felt silly to put so much weight on it, but there was an emptiness in Horatio’s soul where his faith had once resided, and he needed something to fill it with. The smoke rising up between pristine snowflakes seemed like a fitting alternative. He’d never be untangled from Hamlet, not completely.